In Peru, fantastic literature and science fiction have a long tradition that is still undergoing exhumation and rescue. The purpose here is to establish a first cartographic guide to sf in Peru, which from the outset is inevitably incomplete, given that new authors continue to be discovered and that, over the last few decades, sf production has been on the rise.

The first novel ever written in Peru was published in serial format in the newspaper, El Comercio. It was written by Julián M del Portillo (1818-1862), with the title Lima de aquí a cien años ["Lima One Hundred Years from Now"] (1843). The novel fits within the parameters of sf, as it posits a voyage to the future based on the device of the dream (an element used during the Romantic period, when the novel was written). The novel's importance lies not just with its age (it is one of the oldest in the Americas and predates the works of Jules Verne and H G Wells), but in the fact that in Peru, the novel was launched on the basis of fantastical and futuristic elements. The novel projects the educated elite's view of what the young nation of Peru should become, economically and politically; as was the case with many countries in post-independence Latin America, freedom from Spanish rule in 1821 was a recent event that generated instability around the question of political power.

1904-1919

During the Modernist period, interest in science and Technology increased. Of note are the works of Clemente Palma (1872-1946), texts such as "La última rubia" ["The Last Blonde"], included in Cuentos malévolos ["Malevolent Tales"] (coll 1904); "El día trágico" ["The Tragic Day"] (1910 Ilustración Peruana ["Peru Illustrated"]); and above all, the novel XYZ ["XYZ"] (1934). XYZ takes on modern-day themes such as Cloning, Virtual Reality and the creation of artificial life, which make the novel especially current and relevant because it was the first to raise these topics in Latin America. Clemente Palma's body of fiction is made up of the Cuentos malévolos, Mors ex vita ["Mors Ex Vita"] (1923), and the aforementioned novel, along with a selection of texts published in magazines of the day. In his works one can find themes linked to sf and the fantastic.

1920-1959

Authors of note during the avant garde – a period framed by the eleven-year regime of Augusto B Leguía (1919-1930) – include César Vallejo (1892-1938) and Alberto Hidalgo (1897-1967). In Vallejo's case, the texts collected in Escalas ["Scales"] (coll 1923) and the short novel Fabla salvaje ["Wild Talk"] (1924), utilize forms of the fantastic. From Escalas, the story "Los caynas" ["The Caynas"] stands out. Some of the texts in Hidalgo's Los sapos y otras personas ["Toads and Other People"] (coll 1927) convey the tensions of the subject in the face of advancing modernity and, as such, contain futuristic elements. Also noteworthy is his novel, Aquí está el Anticristo ["Here is the Antichrist"] (1957). Following World War Two, Héctor Velarde (1898-1989) authored a series of books that, employing the codes of humour and irony, approximate a modern, future world about which such texts as ¡Un hombre con tongo! ["A Man with a Bowler Hat!"] (1950) speculate. The most emblematic of his many books is La perra en el satélite ["The Dog in the Satellite"] (1958) which is framed by the Cold War and the race to the Moon. Another important author from this period is Eugenio Alarco (1908-2005), with two novels: La magia de los mundos ["The Magic of the Worlds"] (1952) and Los mortales ["The Mortals"] (1966). These are novels that interweave philosophical reflection and the portrayal of a future society.

1960-1979

Two key authors from the years 1960-1980 are Juan Rivera Saavedra (1930- ) and José B Adolph. They are the most-cited Peruvian authors in the sf genre. In addition to having worked in science fiction Theatre, Rivera Saavedra is known for his short stories, collected in Punto ["Point"] (coll 1964) and Cuentos sociales de ciencia ficción ["Social Science Fiction Stories"] (coll 1976). From José B Adolph's extensive production – in his first phase – the standouts are the short story collections El retorno de Aladino ["The Return of Aladdin"] (coll 1968), Hasta que la muerte ["Until Death"] (coll 1971), Invisible para las fieras ["Invisible for the Beasts"] (coll 1972), Cuentos del relojero abominable ["The Abominable Watchmaker's Tales"] (coll 1973), Mañana fuimos felices ["Tomorrow We Were Happy"] (coll 1974), and the novel, Mañana, las ratas ["Tomorrow, the Rats"] (1984), finished in 1977 but published many years after. From Adolph's second phase, of particular note is the trilogy comprised of the novels La verdad sobre Dios y JBA ["The Truth about God and JBA"] (2000), Un ejército de locos ["An Army of Fools"] (2003) and La bandera en alto ["Raise the Flag"] (2009) – the last published posthumously, as were his story collections Los fines del mundo ["The Ends of the Earth"] (coll 2003) and Es sólo un viejo tren ["It's Only an Old Train"] (coll 2007).

These authors were joined by José Estremadoyro (1914-1975), whose Glasskan, el planeta maravilloso ["Glasskan, The Marvellous Planet"] (1968) and its sequel, Los homos y la tierra ["Men and Earth"] (1971), tell of a human's voyage to a planet very similar to our own; 12:01 p.m. en el 2000 ["12:01 p.m. in the Year 2000"] (1962); by Eva Rosack (pseudonym of Consuelo Boza); by María Tellería Solari (1926-? ), who published brief sf stories in the magazine Lo insólito ["The Uncanny"] in the 1970s; by Harry Belevan (1945- ), whose novel La piedra en el agua ["The Stone in the Water"] (1977) contains echoes of H P Lovecraft; and by the works of Jorge Eduardo Eielson (1924-2006): El cuerpo de Giulia-no ["Giulia-no's Body"] (1972) and Primera muerte de María ["María's First Death"] (1988), which have sf elements, passages and scenes inserted into the principal narratives.

1980-1999

In 1980, Peru returned to the democratic system that had been suspended during the military dictatorship of Juan Velasco Alvarado and Francisco Morales Bermúdez (1968-1980). Sf and the fantastic began quietly gaining strength in the 1980s and 1990s. Those were the early years of the political violence (or armed internal conflict), waged by subversive groups, that so rocked Lima and the provinces during the administrations of Fernando Belaúnde (1980-1985), Alan García (1985-1990) and Alberto Fujimori (1990-1992). After Congress was dissolved in 1992 and the Constitution changed in 1993 to permit his reelection, Fujimori held power until 2000, when his regime fell owing to charges of corruption. In some cases, the country's real violence acquired allegorical dimensions in the fiction of the day. Within sf alone there is the novel Sodoma, Santos y Gomorra ["Sodom, Saints and Gomorrah"] (1986) by Aída Balta (1957- ); story collections that include genre narratives, such as Los grillos ["The Crickets"] (coll 1992) by Lucio Colonna-Preti (1950-2009), Operación Cosmos ["Operation Cosmos"] (coll 1996) by Abraham Jara Támara (1927-? ), Las formas ["The Forms"] (coll 1997) by Carlos Bancayán Llontop (1943- ), Un único desierto ["A Unique Desert"] (coll 1997) by Enrique Prochazka (1960- ), Crueldad del ajedrez ["The Cruelty of Chess"] (coll 1999) by Carlos Herrera (1961- ); and the novels Hiperespacios ["Hyperspaces"] (1990) by Giancarlo Stagnaro (1975- ), El fabuloso reino de Ancat ["The Fabulous Kingdom of Ancat"] (1998) by Guido Fernández de Córdova (1925-2004), who revisits J R R Tolkien's universe, and La fabulosa máquina del sueño ["The Fabulous Dream Machine"] (1999) by José Donayre (1966- ), which imagines a Dystopian universe with a nod to Peru's cycle of political violence.

2000 onward

Starting in the year 2000, there has been an explosive emergence of writers of sf and fantastic literature in Peru. This surge is due to various factors: postmodernism and the loss of ideology experienced by the younger generation starting with primary school in the 1990s (which broke with the realist or mimetic paradigm); the expansion in new Technologies (the Internet) and Virtual Reality; fiction's complete assimilation of mass culture (Cinema, Television, Comics, rock music); and the appearance of various independent publishers who are shaping genre fiction. On a secondary plane, Peru's relative political and economic stability also provide context.

These days sf relies on the internet, which enables its diffusion via such Peruvian websites as Ciencia Ficción Perú ["SF Peru"] and Agujero Negro ["Black Hole"] (with help from former staff of Velero 25, a now-defunct webzine). As for printed SF Magazines, standouts include Argonautas ["Argonauts"], with four issues to date, and the brand-new Umbral: Revista peruana de literatura fantástica ["Threshold: Peruvian Magazine of Fantastic Literature"]. Independent publishers like Borrador Editores, Altazor, Casatomada and Estruendomudo have contributed to the spread of works by young authors.

It may be confidently asserted that Peru does indeed have a tradition of sf and the fantastic, and that its writers are shaping new narrative discourses and producing substantial changes in local modes of representation. [EHV/AB]

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